DUNEDIN – Riley Tirotta hit a three-run homer in the eighth inning as the Toronto Blue Jays defeated Canada’s national baseball team 10-7 in an exhibition game Tuesday afternoon.<\/p>\n
Tirotta’s homer came after Canada came back to tie the game after giving up seven runs over the first two innings.\u00a0<\/p>\n
It was the first of Canada’s two games against Major League Baseball opposition as it prepares for the World Baseball Classic.<\/p>\n
Jes\u00fas S\u00e1nchez drove in three runs and Kevin Gausman pitched two scoreless innings to stake the Blue Jays to an early lead.<\/p>\n
Canada started to chip away at the deficit once it started getting deep into the Jays’ bullpen. The Canadians tied the game with a four-run eighth inning led by a solo home run from Jacob Robson.<\/p>\n
Jack Cushing, who was charged with a blown save in the eighth, came back out for the ninth after Tirotta’s homer and worked a scoreless inning to get the win.<\/p>\n
Brock Dykxhoorn took the loss after giving up the go-ahead homer in the eighth.<\/p>\n
Canada faces Philadelphia on Wednesday afternoon before opening its WBC schedule on Saturday afternoon against Colombia in San Juan, Puerto Rico.<\/p>\n
The Blue Jays have an off-day before returning to spring training action Thursday against Atlanta in North Port, Fla.<\/p>\n
S\u00e1nchez opened the scoring with a two-run single in the first inning. Toronto piled on five more runs in the second on a walk to George Springer with the bases loaded, a two-run single from Nathan Lukes, a groundout from Daulton Varsho and a run-scoring single by S\u00e1nchez.<\/p>\n
Canada got two back in the sixth off Jays reliever Lazaro Estrada through a Tyler O’Neill sacrifice fly and an RBI single from Owen Caissie. Jared Young added another with a bases-loaded sacrifice fly off Tanner Andrews in the seventh.<\/p>\n
Robson opened Canada’s big eighth inning with a solo homer off Gage Stanifer. Liam Hicks and Denzel Clark followed with run-scoring hits, then Tyler Black tied the game with a sacrifice fly.<\/p>\n
Canada starter Logan Allen was pulled after allowing three baserunners without recording an out to start the second inning. He was charged with five earned runs.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Noah Skirrow pitched the next two innings, giving up two earned runs but striking out four.<\/p>\n
Adam Macko, Eric Cerantola, Indigo Diaz and Antoine Jean combined to allow just one hit over the next four innings.<\/p>\n
This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 3, 2026.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"DUNEDIN – Riley Tirotta hit a three-run homer in the eighth inning as the Toronto Blue Jays defeated…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":604570,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2288],"tags":[2309,5,2316,2323,2313,2325,2335,389,19,2310,2328,2304,2318,2308,2319,4,2305,2303,2307,2326,4508,2321,185,2324,2311,5926,2312,4820],"class_list":{"0":"post-604569","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb-postseason","8":"tag-ball-and-bat-games","9":"tag-baseball","10":"tag-baseball-competitions","11":"tag-baseball-events","12":"tag-baseball-playoffs-and-champions","13":"tag-baseball-teams","14":"tag-home-run","15":"tag-kevin-gausman","16":"tag-major-league-baseball","17":"tag-major-league-baseball-competitions","18":"tag-major-league-baseball-playoffs","19":"tag-major-league-baseball-postseason","20":"tag-major-league-baseball-seasons","21":"tag-major-league-baseball-teams","22":"tag-major-league-baseball-teams-seasons","23":"tag-mlb","24":"tag-mlb-playoffs","25":"tag-mlb-postseason","26":"tag-outdoor-sports","27":"tag-run-baseball","28":"tag-sacrifice-fly","29":"tag-seasons-in-baseball","30":"tag-sports","31":"tag-sports-events","32":"tag-team-sports","33":"tag-toronto-blue-jays-minor-league-players","34":"tag-turf-sports","35":"tag-world-baseball-classic"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/604569","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=604569"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/604569\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/604570"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=604569"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=604569"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=604569"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}